"What are you doing there, Rose? Enjoying the prospect?" asked Castalia. The shutters were not closed, but, as the night was very dark, there certainly did not seem to be any inducement to look out of the window.
"Can't you persuade your husband to come, dear? I'm so sorry!" said Rose, turning round; and her sister looked up quickly at the sound of her voice, which, to Violet's accustomed ear, betrayed in its inflections suppressed anger. Her face, too, was crimson, and her little light blue eyes sparkled with unusual brightness.
Castalia, however, noticed none of these things. "Oh, he'll come presently," she said. "He really was finishing a cigar. I told him that you were offended with him, and——"
"I offended with your husband? Oh dear no! Why on earth should I be? You ought not to have said that, Castalia."
"Well, you thought he was offended with you, or something of the sort. It's all the same," returned Castalia, with her air of weary indifference. "And he says it's nonsense."
"My dear, I am only sorry on your account that he won't come. Really, to myself, it matters very little; very little indeed. What a pity that you have not some one to amuse him! We are none of us clever enough, that is clear."
"Oh, you are quite mistaken if you think Ancram cares particularly for clever women!" said Castalia, whose thoughts instantly reverted to Minnie Bodkin. "Even Miss Bodkin, whom everybody declares to be such a wonder of talent, bores him sometimes, I can tell you. Of course he has known her from his childhood, and all that; but he said to me only yesterday that she was conceited, and too fond of preaching. So you see! I daresay, poor thing, she fancies all the time that she is enchanting him by her wisdom."
"Dear me," said Violet timidly, and with a sort of strangled sigh. "I think that, as a rule, gentlemen don't like any kind of women except pretty women! Though, to be sure, Minnie is handsome enough if it wasn't for her affliction."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Minnie," said Rose, viciously twitching at her sewing thread. "I meant it was a pity there was no one here who was clever enough, and who thought it worth while, to play off pretty airs and graces for Mr. Errington's amusement. That's the kind of cleverness that attracts men. And your husband, my dear, was always remarkably fond of flirting."
Violet opened her eyes in astonishment, and, from her place a little behind Castalia, made a warning grimace to her sister; but Rose only responded by a defiant toss of the head. Castalia's attention was now effectually aroused, and although she still spoke in the querulous drawl that was natural to her (or had become so from long habit), it was with a countenance earnestly addressed to her interlocutor, instead of, as hitherto, with carelessly averted eyes. "I never heard any one say before that Ancram was fond of flirting," she said.